3,600 still powerless in Oakland County, residents upset

Utility trucks sit along Allen Road in Independence Township. Some of the areas residents have been out of power for more that seven days. Friday, December 27, 2013. Tim Thompson-The Oakland Press

Nearly 3,600 households are still without power in Oakland County following last week’s fierce ice storms that caused nearly 570,000 power outages in Michigan.

More than 1,000 Consumers Energy customers in Oakland County were without power as of Friday afternoon according to Brain Wheeler, spokesman for Consumers Energy.

“We are looking for full restoration by the end of day Saturday,” he said. “The work is continuing and will be continuning straight through Saturday and probably into Sunday as well.”

Vanessa Waters, a spokeswoman for DTE Energy, said around 2,600 customers were still without power as of Friday afternoon. The company has restored power to nearly 147,300 of the 150,000 outages since last Saturday’s storm and expects full restoration sometime during the weekend.

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At Consumers, Wheeler said that the local nature of the outages coupled with frigid conditions have factored into the weeklong efforts of nearly 1,000 Consumers linemen to fully restore power to customers.

“Many of the outages are smaller ones where maybe a handful of homes or businesses are affected at a time,” he said. “Just by way of comparison, we had that wind storm last month and that had roughly the same number of folks affected but in that case, there were many more large distribution lines that went down. In those cases a lot of time you could restore power to hundreds or thousands of people at once.”

For the nearly 1,500 DTE linemen on the streets, delays have been caused primarily by the discovery of damage at a greater extent than previously projected, Waters said.

That damage extends to personal property as well.

Holly resident Laura Gunn, 33, went outside to witness a tree in their yard being set ablaze by a powerline that had fallen under the weight a thick coating of ice during the night of the storm.

“We had eight hours of sparking and flames,” she said. “The flames would go from one foot to 10 feet; tree branches were on fire and falling in the yard. That went through the whole night; the fire department had to leave to go on other calls. They told us to keep an eye on it until Consumers (Energy) got there and they never came. They still haven’t come.”

Her family woke up to what sounded like an explosion the next morning, she said, as fallen power lines began to spark in front of her house, eventually landing on her husband’s pickup truck and leaving it untouchable for fear of potential electric shock.

“It woke up my neighbors,” she said. It looked almost like neon lights and then there was a big boom. It went on for a good 60 seconds. When that happened, all the power was completely out.”

Now nearly a week without power, Gunn laments the fact that her family was unable to spend Christmas at their own home, instead opting to move it to her sister’s house in Clarkston where she is currently staying until power is restored. Even then, she’s afraid of what might come next.

“I fear they’re going to turn the power back on somewhere down the line and my house is going to catch on fire,” she said.

It’s been costly for many residents with portable home generators as well; Independence Township resident Fred Sarmiento said he’s put nearly $400 of gasoline in his generator, running it nonstop since last Saturday’s storm, while Holly resident Michael Bambach said he’s spent at least $100 since Sunday morning to keep the essentials such as his refrigerator operating.

Bambach, 33, said he’s been without power since 5 a.m. Sunday and, while he understands the difficult conditions that DTE’s linemen are working in, he’s fed up with the inaccurate estimates he’s been given.

“The linemen and the people doing the work, they need more credit or more publicity than we do because they’re working in crappy conditions,” he said. “The people who estimate this: if you don’t have a good estimate, then why do you give 11:30 p.m. every day?”

The company has issued an apology to customers on its website about the multiple, inaccurate estimates for restoration given during and following the ice storm.

The Michigan Public Service Commission sent out a notice early Friday notifying residential and business electric customers that they may be eligible for a credit from their utility providers on their electric bill.

“Regulated utilities in Michigan are required to offer bill credits to customers in certain situations after electric outages,” said MPSC Chairman John D. Quackenbush in a press release. “Residential customers may qualify for a $25 credit, and commercial customers may also receive a credit based on their minimum bills.”

But that $25 credit is unlikely to calm the nerves of many residents affected by last week’s storms and this week’s outages — residents like Gunn, who said the $25 credit would be a paltry sum compared to the lost income due to her husband’s truck being put out of commission by flailing powerlines.

A representative for Gov. Snyder said Friday afternoon that a state declaration of emergency was unlikely because of the response of local emergency managers. Four counties — Barry, Clinton, Eaton and Shiawassee — had declared a local state of emergency following the storm.